Controlled
by MistressMacha
Summary: A twist on 'Fault' I wrote after I got 'revenge/sacrifice' in a challenge. How far would you go if the most important person in your life needed you to? Can get heavy on angst. Rated M for violence in later chapters. Co-Author: Lissa G.G. McArthur.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

_'Please, Elliot, for me, do it for me...'_

'Sir? Sir, are you all right? Sir?'

'What happened to him?'

'I don't know, I just came to open the store and he was hunched up by the door.'

'Sir? Can we get you some help?'

Elliot looked up at them, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees, hugging them against him. His eyes were red and slightly glazed with shock. 'I... I...' His shoulders began to shake and he buried his face in his knees again, sobbing.

'Sir, I'm going to help you stand up, OK?' Then, as an aside to someone else, 'best call the sheriff.'

'No...' Elliot shook his head vigorously as he felt someone take hold of his arms. 'Olivia...'

'It's OK, Sir, we- Oh my God!' The hands were snatched away. 'Sir, is that your blood? Where are you bleeding?' A frantic shout. 'Someone call 911!'

_'What the...' Elliot opened his eyes and winced. He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck as he sat up, and his fingers came away bloody. 'Where...' He looked around. He was in a small room, about 5m x 5m, with a bright white floor, which glared almost blindingly as it reflected the bright spotlights set in the ceiling. He saw dozens of people sitting around him, and felt a wave of dizziness. He lay back down, waiting for his head to clear. _

_Something looked off... he squinted and then felt a cold shiver as he realised that every inch of the walls and ceiling was covered in mirrors, and that all the other people were just reflections. He saw a second figure in a long white nightdress reflected behind him, and his stomach lurched. 'Olivia!' He jumped up to run to her but his head span from the sudden movement and he sat down hard again on the floor. His body ached all over. _

_Elliot forced himself up onto his knees and crawled over to her. 'Liv?' He shook her shoulder and nearly cried with relief when she coughed and turned onto her back. 'Olivia, it's me, Elliot.'_

_'El?' Olivia opened her eyes slowly, then immediately squeezed them shut again. 'El, my head...'_

_'I know, Liv.' Elliot stroked her hair, and froze as he noticed something beneath it. He brushed her hair away to expose the side of her neck. There was a large burn marking her skin at the spot where her shoulder met her neck. It looked like it had come from some kind of stun gun. He reached around and felt the sore spot on the back of his own neck. 'Liv, wake up!'_

_'Hmmm...' Olivia put her hand up to shield her eyes. 'El, where are we... should be at home...'_

_'I don't know, Liv, but we'll figure it out,' he said reassuringly. He tried to remember how they had gotten here. He remembered getting home late the night before, collapsing onto the couch in his tiny Brooklyn apartment fully dressed and falling asleep. He was still wearing the suit he had worn the previous day to work, minus his shoes and tie and with the shirt untucked, several buttons torn off. Olivia wore only a nightdress, and lay curled up on the floor barefoot and shivering. 'Here, Liv, let me help you.' He managed to move her into a sitting position and tucked his suit jacket around her shoulders._

_Olivia opened her eyes and looked around, trying and failing to focus her eyes on anything. 'How many of us in here, Elliot?'_

_'Only us, Liv, everyone else is only a reflection, the place is covered in mirrors.' He felt her body tense. 'What is it, Liv?'_

_'Mirrors?' She frowned, trying to shake off the lingering drowsiness._

_'Yes, Liv, mirrors...'_

_'Elliot... the home invasions in Washington Heights... what the perp did with the mirrors...' She looked frustrated. 'He likes... to watch. He likes... them to watch.'_

_Elliot felt a chill as he realised what she meant._


	2. Chapter 2

**_A/N: MistressMacha is away on her American Adventure for the next seven weeks. Luckily her sidekick Miss Lissa is here to take up the slack and make sure these things get updated when she's too busy!_**

**_I am currently working on a second M-rated fic. Any E/O shippers out there should brace themselves for that one._  
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**CHAPTER 2**

WOMEN NEED TO KNOW THEIR PLACE THEY SHOULD SERVE THEIR HUSBANDS THEIR HUSBANDS ARE WEAK AND LET THEIR WIVES CONTROL THEM THEY ARE JUST AS GUILTY THEY DISGUST ME

'New mantra, Captain?' asked Munch.

'Ha ha, John,' replied Don Cragen sarcastically, tacking up images around the printed words on the board. 'OK, we've got another couple in Washington Heights, perp broke into their apartment during the night, shot and killed the husband, then raped and tortured the wife to death. Found this pinned to the wall above their bed. This is the fifth one this year, and I for one have had enough of hearing about this sicko.' Cragen looked at them each in turn. 'This guy must have made a slip somewhere and we have to find it.'

'No offence, Cap'n, but how do we know it's the same guy?' asked Fin.

'What he does to them,' replied Cragen. 'He incapacitates them first, but doesn't yet kill them, which gives him the time to set up. In every crime scene we've found all the mirrors in the house propped around the room and the victims staged in a very particular way. The husband is always sat up against the wall, the wife on the floor surrounded by the mirrors. Both have had their eyelids cut off. She has invariably been repeatedly raped and beaten, and in all cases but one the perp has cut her open and excised internal organs until she died from blood loss or shock.' Cragen looked nauseous. 'We found their organs neatly lined up beside the women. He makes them watch their own slow deaths in the mirrors, and he makes the husband watch even after he is dead.'

'What about the other case? Where he didn't cut her?' Munch looked intrigued.

'Warner found a pre-existing heart condition. It's likely she died before he had a chance to get to her. It's their terror and pain he gets off on, so he had no reason to wait around.' Cragen paused. 'The next night he attacked another couple three blocks away. This wife wasn't as fortunate, if you can call it that.'

'Jesus...' muttered Olivia.

'It gets worse,' said Cragen.

'How can it get worse?' Olivia wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

Cragen sighed. 'Warner ran a tox screen on the latest woman. It showed up pancuronium bromide in her system.'

'A muscle relaxant?' said Elliot.

'So the women couldn't struggle.' Olivia felt her stomach turn over. The thought of what had happened to these poor women... 'It was so he could do what he wanted with them and they couldn't move. They were completely aware of everything, but they were completely paralysed. They couldn't even scream.' A chill of horror ran down her spine.

Cragen nodded. 'That's how he managed to carry out these extended rituals in packed apartment buildings without anyone reporting a struggle or screaming. It's a fair assumption that the other women had also been given pancuronium bromide, but as there was no reason to test for it, it was never detected.'

'Why'd Warner test for it this time?'

'She found an injection site concealed between the toes,' replied Cragen. 'She wanted to know exactly what she'd been injected with, and why.'

_'Elliot... what are we doing here...' Olivia was beginning to feel less drowsy now, but her muscles still ached._

_'I don't know, Liv.' Elliot figured honesty was the best policy right now, not least because he had no idea what reason he could possibly come up with that would make any sense. _

_Olivia still had his jacket wrapped around her shoulders but was still shivering in her thin nightdress. Elliot shifted closer and wrapped his arms around her. She looked up at him, her eyes wide. 'It's the Washington Heights guy, El, I know it is...'_

_'We don't know that, Olivia.' Except he did. Who else would do this? They already knew that he enjoyed testing and exploiting relationships almost as much as he did causing pain. To actually take them from their homes and move them to a specially designed place to do it though... that was one hell of a progression. He'd probably been building up to this, planning this, for a while. Clearly doing it on his victims' own turf wasn't enough for him anymore - he needed to bewilder and disorientate them first now. The mirrors, too - this guy liked control, and a purposely-designed space like this gave him complete power over how to stage his crimes, not to mention the whole new level that he could take his fascination with mirrors to. And the increased privacy..._

_Elliot shuddered and wondered how many others had been taken down here and never found. He tried not to think about what this guy had planned for Olivia. He pulled her closer to him. 'It'll be OK, Liv, I promise I'll make sure it's OK.' He kissed the top of her head and she sniffed and burrowed closer into his shoulder. At that moment, Elliot was more frightened for her than he was for himself._


	3. Chapter 3

**_A/N: Chapter 3, sorry about the delay but my grandma just took in a load more guests and they've taken up a lot of time..._  
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**CHAPTER 3**

_'Please, Elliot, I love you, please, you have to...'_

'Olivia...' Elliot was still curled up on the forecourt of the convenience store. More people had gathered and were milling around gossiping and watching the free show. It wasn't every day a crazy guy covered in blood turned up in town.

'Sir, what happened?' The owner of the store, the man who had found him, was sitting beside Elliot on the concrete surfacing. 'My wife's called 911. Tell me what happened, and I can try to help you.'

'I didn't want to but I had to, I had to...' Elliot was curled up tightly into a ball, staring straight ahead.

'Had to do what, Sir?'

'I had to, it was for her, I loved her...'

'Who, Sir? Where is she now?'

'He said we had an interesting dynamic... he said we were fascinating...'

'Who said?'

'He did...'

'Does this man have 'her', Sir?'

'No. No, he doesn't.' Elliot smiled faintly. 'I saved her.'

'That's... very good, Sir.' The man stood up and went over to his son-in-law, lowering his voice. 'The sheriff say how long he'd be?'

'He's been held up. Some woman on the Glenshane Road outside of town.'

Elliot closed his eyes. 'Olivia...'

'Call again,' the man told his son-in-law. 'Tell them we need the medics here right now.'

'Elliot, Olivia, how's the investigation into that creep in the Lower East Side going?'

Olivia looked up and shook her head. 'Not good, Captain, so far all we've got are garbled witness accounts and one guy who swears blind that he saw Elvis do it.'

'But, we're not linking it to the other seven attacks also committed by Elvis over the past week,' said Elliot, rolling his eyes.

'Well, as much as I want to believe that Elvis is alive, well and exposing himself to old ladies, I'm going to need you to take a break from that. We've had a call come in from Washington Heights.'

'The home invasions guy?' said Olivia.

'We're not too sure. Apparently a man stumbled into a gas station in his nightclothes shouting about being attacked in his house, and then collapsed on the floor. Staff called 911, uniform attended, recognised him as a local mailman. Up in the apartment the wife's dead in their bed, one gunshot wound to the head, nothing otherwise disturbed.'

'Then why are we being called in?' asked Elliot. 'Doesn't sound like one of ours.'

'Before he passed out, the man was yelling about the intruder having a bag full of surgical instruments and vials. He said the perp showed it to him and told him what everything was for and how he intended to use it on his wife.' Cragen kneaded his forehead. He was getting to the stage where there was only so much more of this he could take. 'The husband's still under sedation. I'm not sure how much he'll be able to tell you, but uniform are still with him, so they might be able to help you out.'

'So, no staging, no extended ritual, no sign of forced entry, and the husband is somehow miraculously unhurt,' said Elliot slowly. He sounded doubtful. 'No offence, Cap'n, but I just don't think this is the same guy.'

'Neither did I,' said Cragen, 'but based on what I'm told the husband said before he completely fell apart, I've changed my mind. There were details never released to the press, things a mailman wouldn't know about otherwise. This is our guy. It has to be.'

'So why'd the perp shoot her first?' Olivia was intrigued. 'Our guy wouldn't do that. He gets off on their pain. Shooting her first would ruin the fun.'

'Maybe she refused to play nice,' suggested Elliot. 'She kicks off, the perp gets distracted, the husband takes his chance and runs.'

'Real chivalrous,' muttered Munch as he passed by.

Elliot ignored him. 'Perp realises he's not got time for the usual games, so he shoots the wife and gets the hell out of there before the guy has a chance to call the cops.'

'No, Elliot.' Cragen stopped him. 'That's the interesting thing. Apparently the perp didn't shoot her.'

'Then who did?' asked Elliot.

Cragen looked at him. 'Her husband.'


	4. Chapter 4

**_A/N: Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing, it's always good to get some feedback and to know that someone out there is enjoying my work!_**

**CHAPTER 4**

'What do you make of this guy, El?' Seeing the newest crime scene had just made Olivia even more confused, and seeing the husband at the hospital hadn't helped much either.

'I don't know,' replied Elliot thoughtfully. 'I would say that the husband is almost incidental for him, but he seems to play a pretty important part in the whole ritual.'

'I know,' agreed Olivia. 'It's as if he wants to punish someone, but isn't quite sure who.'

'I disagree there, I think he's trying to punish the women for something.' Elliot took a sip of his coffee. 'You saw what he did, the men get a quick death, the women have theirs drawn out painfully.'

'But he makes the husbands watch,' said Olivia. 'You saw the note they found at that crime scene. He hates the men for being weak, so he punishes them by torturing the wives they've allowed to control them. It's his own way of making the women subservient again.'

'I thought Warner decided that the husbands were probably dead before the wives were killed?'

'She did, but symbolically they have to watch,' said Olivia. 'He actually cuts off their eyelids so they can't look away. Plus you heard what the husband said today, the perp was enjoying telling him everything he was going to do. He wants the last things these men think of to be what is about to happen to their wives. The removal of the eyelids is just a taster of what's about to happen.'

'That's if you take the husband today at his word,' muttered Elliot.

'Why, you don't think he was on the level?'

'It's not that so much as it doesn't sound like our guy,' said Elliot. 'There was no staging of the scene, no mirrors, the husband escaped almost completely unhurt... and the wife was shot through the head, with her husband's own gun, no less, and not tortured. I say it's either a copycat, or this guy's been following the news and decided he didn't much care for his wife any more.'

'I get the feeling we're missing something here, El,' said Olivia slowly. 'I just don't know what. There was something he wasn't telling us.'

'I know. There's this grey area around the time where his wife was killed. I suppose you could chalk it up to trauma, but... it's just another reason why I'm not sure the case today is related.'

Olivia paused thoughtfully. 'Did you get the feeling that he felt guilty, El?'

'Well, if he killed her, he has every reason to feel guilty,' replied Elliot.

'The guy was almost mute with shock, El. I don't know that it's possible to fake that.'

'I've seen enough to know that perps can fake anything if they need to.'

'True,' agreed Olivia. She finished off her coffee. 'Or perhaps it was guilt, or shock at what he'd done?'

'Maybe.' Elliot looked at his watch. 'Want to head on to the gas station, talk to the witnesses there?'

'Sure, El.'

_Elliot had remembered enough to figure out what must have happened to them. First he must have used the stun gun to incapacitate them, then some kind of drug to sedate them for long enough to bring them here. The main thing that made no sense to him was why'd the guy bother? This guy only went for married couples, and always in their own homes. This was the first time Elliot knew of that he had actually abducted victims from their homes and moved them to a secondary location. Then again, who was to say he hadn't done this before and they just hadn't found them yet... Elliot shook it off. That wouldn't help them. Olivia had stopped shivering and fallen asleep, exhausted from having spent much of the previous four hours weeping inconsolably while he stroked her hair and held her. He knew that if Olivia was crying over it, it must be bad - she was the strongest, most determined person he knew._

_He used the silence to think carefully about the situation they were in. He wasn't sure what the guy had planned, but figured it must be something more than they had previously assumed - otherwise he could think of no reason why he would have been left alive so long. Clearly there was some other aspect of the couples' relationships that the perp enjoyed exploiting and turning on them, but the question was what it was. They already knew that everything was about this big power trip the guy was on, that he needed to have complete control. _

_He and Olivia had argued about which of the couple was his main target, the woman who was raped and tortured before being killed or her husband who was forced to watch it. Now Elliot thought about it, it wasn't about one or other of the couple at all - it was the relationship itself the perp hated. Above all else, he would want to destroy it, even more than he wanted to destroy the victims themselves. The rape and torture were, if not incidental, secondary to his main desire, which was to break apart strongly bonded couples and turn them on each other. Then, and only then, would he torture and kill them. This, Elliot thought, was where he and Olivia had an advantage - they knew what he wanted and, to an extent, how he achieved it. He wasn't sure how, but Elliot believed he could use this against the guy._

_He was startled out of his thoughts by a loud clang. He looked up to see a small hatch open in the opposite wall at floor level, but before he had a chance to jump up and run to it, a small box was thrown across the floor towards them and it was slammed closed again. Olivia was awake again, sitting up looking dazed. 'El?'_

_'It's OK, Liv, I'm here.' He moved quickly over to where hatch had been, felt around the wall and found an almost imperceptible gap in the mirrors coating it. He pushed on it, first softly then harder. It didn't move. He sat back and kicked it harder and harder. Still nothing. 'Damn it...' Behind him he heard a sharp intake of breath and turned quickly. Olivia had the box in her lap and was holding a small card. 'Liv? Liv, what is it?'_

_Olivia looked up at him, her eyes wide with horror. 'El... it says we have to choose.' She lifted the pistol and single bullet out of the box to show him._


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: This one's going to be wrapping up too soon, but fear not! I have two more I'm working on and one of them is almost ready to go! As ever, r+r, I love to read your comments and I don't get nearly enough of them!  
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**CHAPTER 5**

'Starting from the beginning, can you tell me what happened this morning?' Elliot wasn't sure he liked the atmosphere in the gas station. There was this air of excitement... like everyone was beside themselves with joy that something terrible had happened so close by.

A teenage employee in a hideous red vest jumped forward. 'Sure, uh, well, I was setting up the candy display-'

'Shut up, Doug, you weren't even here yet,' snapped an older man with a tag reading 'Bob the Manager.' 'I'd just arrived not ten minutes before to start the morning shift, I'm in back getting all set up and I hear this great fuss from the store. Now, I figure another hobo's wandered in and scared all the delicate ladies, but then I heard the wailing.'

'Wailing?' asked Olivia.

'Yeah, this guy was screaming, 'my wife, my wife, she's dead!' over and over. We get our fair share of nutbags in here but this guy sounded different, you know?' Bob the Manager smiled broadly.

'Yes, we do,' said Elliot. 'You see anything else going on nearby?'

'Well, what with this guy freaking his shit in the middle of the floor, my mind wasn't exactly on what going on outside,' replied Bob the Manager. 'Anyway, that moment Doug here walks in and I send him straight out back to phone 911.' He smiled at Olivia. 'I always say, advantage of being three doors down from a Dunkin Donuts, there's never a shortage of cops when we need one, sweetheart, am I right?'

Olivia ignored him. 'And what happened then?'

Bob the Manager seemed a little put out. 'Well, you know, this guy was shouting about how his wife was dead and it was all his fault, so I got Doug here and Jason - Jason's my boy on the early shift, went home a couple hours after it happened - to sit on him and hold him down.'

Olivia's eyes widened. 'This man came in for help and you forcibly restrained him?'

'Come on now, sweetheart, it wasn't like that,' protested Bob the Manager. 'This guy was losing it, didn't want him to be a danger to any of my customers or the store, you know? Plus for all I knew that crazy sonofabitch was the one who killed his wife, didn't want him doing a bolt did I?'

'Of course not, Sir.' Elliot shot Olivia a look.

'Tell you what, El, I'll finish up here and you go and take a statement from Doug, OK?' Olivia usually found that it was best to separate Elliot from whatever was pissing him off whenever she saw that look.

'Sure, Liv.' Elliot looked a little disappointed; he would have really enjoyed taking that asshole manager down a few, and now he had to go exchange pleasantries with a greasy teenager with more spots than brain cells.

Bob the Manager looked Olivia up and down. 'You're quite an independent one, aren't you?'

'I can look after myself, yes,' replied Olivia briskly. 'Now, if you don't mind going over a few more things-'

'Bet you give him a hard time once in a while.'

'Sir, if we can just-'

'I've heard that partners have an incredible bond,' he continued. 'Is that true?'

'I don't know, Sir,' said Olivia, trying not to scream. Enough was enough. 'Would you prefer to speak with my partner?'

'If you'd rather, sweetheart.' Bob the Manager smiled at her.

Olivia wanted to hit him. Right now, the creep would have a better chance of escaping unharmed from Elliot. 'El, trade!'

'Thank God,' muttered Elliot. While he was sure that Doug was a very nice guy, there were only so many times he could stand hearing the word 'like' in a single sentence. 'So, Mr, uh-'

'Stark, Robert Stark, nice to meet you.' He stuck his hand out to shake.

Elliot pointedly raised an eyebrow and waited for him to get the hint. 'So, Mr Stark-'

'Bob, call me Bob.' He reluctantly lowered his hand and promptly started fidgeting.

'Uh, so... Bob... tell me everything that happened this morning-'

'Your partner's quite the firecracker, isn't she?' interrupted Bob.

Elliot sighed inwardly. First the moron, now the creep. This was an excellent day.

_'Olivia, we are not going to choose. We are not going to play his game.' Elliot was determined. 'I don't care what he says, we are not deciding which one of us lives or dies.'_

_'But Elliot, we don't get to choose,' said Olivia. 'Only one of us is ever going to leave here and it's not me.'_

_'Olivia, that's not true.'_

_'But Elliot... can't you see? He gives them all the same choice. If the husband chooses to kill his wife, then he gets to live... but if the wife decides to kill her husband, he tortures her to death to punish her.'_

_'What if they don't choose?' Elliot could barely speak._

_Olivia's lower lip was trembling. 'I don't know, El... but I'd bet it's that the wife is tortured and killed for not sacrificing herself for her husband, and the husband is killed for his weakness. He's giving them one last chance to redeem themselves...'_

_'Olivia...' Elliot felt sick. 'Olivia, you don't know that...'_

_She looked at him and nodded. 'I do, El. And so do you.'_

_Elliot buried his face in his hands, trying to think of a way out of this. 'Olivia, I will not do this.'_

_'Elliot, we have an hour to choose,' replied Olivia softly. 'We can wait for as long as you want, but when it comes down to it, when no one has come for us, you know what you need to do.' She climbed into his lap and hugged him tightly. 'I'm so sorry, Elliot.'_

_'Why are you sorry?' He looked down at her, used his finger to tilt her chin up so she was looking him in the face. 'Liv? Why are you sorry?'_

_Her expression was resigned. 'Because, El, I could never do it.'_

_'What the hell, Olivia, and you think I can?' Elliot was suddenly on his feet and pacing the room. 'You can't make me do this, Olivia, you can't...'_

_'But you have to, El,' she said. 'If you don't, he'll still kill me anyway.' Her voice cracked. 'And you know what he'll do to me first... Elliot, please don't let him do that.'_

_'Liv... I can't...'_

_'Elliot... please.' There were tears in her eyes. 'You have kids...'_

_Elliot ran to her and hugged her tightly. 'Olivia... Please don't make me do this, Liv, please...'_


	6. Chapter 6

**_A/N: So, I finally updated. To be honest I've had it written for a while but I've been putting off uploading it because, contrary to what it may seem, I'm not a massive fan of angst. Anyway, here it is for everyone who has been bugging me to update, and there's only one more chapter to go after this one so enjoy what's left!_**

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**CHAPTER 6**

_'Do it for me, El... do it for me...'_

The local sheriff and the medics had long since turned up but Elliot was still almost incoherent with shock.

'Sir, can you tell me your name?' repeated an EMT for the tenth time. Elliot just looked at him.

The sheriff knelt down beside him. 'Sir, how did you get here?'

'He said... we had an interesting dynamic.'

'Who said that, Sir? When?'

'When he... dumped me on the road... he said he'd been watching... that he knew we would be fascinating to watch.'

Elliot suddenly heard the voice of the gas station manager in his head.

_'Your partner's quite the firecracker, isn't she?'_

'Son of a bitch,' muttered Elliot.

_'I've heard that partners have an incredible bond... that it can go beyond even familial links...'_

'On the road?' asked the sheriff.

Elliot was impatient to get this over with now. 'I remember a car... I remember it moving... then it stopped and he told me how much fun it had been, and threw me out... I heard him drive away.'

'You heard who drive away?'

'I... I don't know.' Elliot knew that he had to find that bastard himself. He had no intention of sitting through endless arraignments and hearings with that asshole sat in front of him, alive and off to a life of free gym memberships and cable television.

The sheriff was still taking notes. 'And how did you get to this store, Sir?'

'I... walked. I wanted to find help for her...'

'Who is 'her', Sir?'

'Olivia.' Elliot began to sob again.

_Elliot and Olivia had stopped trying to talk through what to do and sat together against one wall, she in his lap and he hugging her tightly against him. She was still wearing his suit jacket. They sat like that for an age until Olivia twisted Elliot's watch round to check the time. 'El... we have twenty minutes left.'_

_'Someone will come, Liv, someone will come, and we'll be fine,' said Elliot. He'd been repeating this in his head the past half hour and he still didn't believe it any more than he had at the start. He'd kicked at every inch of the walls of this place, tried to pry the mirrors off with his fingers, and gotten nowhere._

_'El... no one is coming. Not even we know where we are.' Olivia was forcing a smile but Elliot knew that she was trying not to cry. 'Elliot...'_

_Elliot suddenly felt angry at her. 'Olivia, who the hell do you think you are to ask me to do this?'_

_'I don't have a choice, Elliot.'_

_'Yes you do, he said we have to choose! So why can't I choose you? Why do you get to die?'_

_'Because, Elliot, it's not about us. It's about him. We never have the choice. You know this guy's too much of a control freak for that. You kill yourself, I get punished. We don't choose, he'll kill you and punish me for it. It's the only way, Elliot.' She swallowed. 'Elliot, the things he would do... you know what he'd do to me. You know what he did to those other women. Don't let him do that, Elliot, please, do it for me.' She forced him to look into her eyes, pleading with him._

_Elliot looked away. He did know what the guy would do with her if he got the chance. He couldn't bear the thought of that happening to her, or that he might make Elliot watch some or all of it. He couldn't watch that, couldn't watch what would be done to her, watch her watching it reflected all around her and knowing it was his fault for being too weak to do what was right. But what was right? Elliot didn't know any more. 'Olivia, please, I can't do this.'_

_'Elliot, you can, because you have to.' Olivia held his face in her hands. 'You have kids, Elliot, you have people who need you back. I don't.' Tears began to run down her cheeks. 'Elliot, you're all I have. If I didn't have you, I would have nothing.'_

_'But, Olivia, I need you...'_

_'And other people need you, El, and you can't let them down. That's not fair to them. Please, Elliot, for me. Do it for me.' She loaded the single bullet into the gun and tried to hand it to him. Elliot pulled away. 'Elliot, you have to.'_

_Elliot began to cry. 'I can't, Liv, I can't...'_

_She looked at him, then pulled him in and kissed him. 'You can. Do it, El. There's not much time.'_

_'Liv, no...'_

_'Elliot, you know what will happen. If you don't, we will both die. I will have to watch you die. Is that what you want?'_

_Elliot couldn't believe everything had come down to these few options. 'No, Liv, it isn't...'_

_'You know what he would do to me, Elliot. You know everything he would do, how he would do it, how I wouldn't be able to scream or move-' Olivia broke off. For all her bravado, she looked terrified. 'Please, Elliot. Do it for me.'_

_Elliot felt sick. He took a deep breath. 'OK.' He nodded, put his hand on her arm. 'I will.'_

_Olivia smiled tearfully at him. 'I knew you would.' She pushed the gun into his hands. 'It's OK, El. I promise.'_

_'It's not, Liv, it's not...' Elliot pulled back the safety catch but couldn't bring himself to actually raise the gun. She reached out and took his hand, lifting it herself and pressing the barrel into the left side of her chest._

_Olivia took several deep breaths, blinked and looked straight at him. She smiled. 'El... I'm glad you're here.'_

_Elliot hesitated, realised he couldn't do it, and tried to pull the gun away. Olivia grabbed the barrel and squeezed the trigger herself with her thumb, and he felt the pistol kick before he could wrestle it away from her._

_Olivia flew backwards, her legs going out from under her as she collapsed onto her back on the floor, her arms and legs askew. Elliot heard her take in and let out a shallow, rattling breath, then there was silence._

_He choked and dropped the empty gun on the floor. 'Liv?' Suddenly it hit him. What the hell did he just do? 'LIV!' He ran to her and fell to his knees beside her, the knees of his trousers absorbing some of the spreading pool of dark red. There was only a smallish red wound with powder burn marks around it, but as he went to lift her it occurred to him that the exit wound in her back, if there was one, was probably a lot worse. The front of her nightgown was already soaked with blood, and the pale lining of his suit jacket was stained almost black. 'Oh God, Olivia...' Her head was turned away and he turned it back to face him, brushing her hair out of her eyes. 'Olivia...'_

_Someone hit him from behind._

_**A/N: Yes... as I said, angst. Lots of it. If it helps, I also wrote/am writing a couple of non-angsty ones, so if you'd like a happy-ever-after story after all this, I have some of those too. Aftermath and its sequel in particular may help to cheer you up.  
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_**In the meantime... please forgive me. I didn't like doing this to her either.**  
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	7. Chapter 7

**_A/N: It's the final chapter, and even if this story hasn't proved hugely popular with all of you, I've really enjoyed writing it. I hope everyone who's been reading is happy with the way that it's played out, and even if this is the last chapter, send me a review anyway and let me know what you thought._  
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**EPILOGUE**

_Three months later_

It was two in the morning and Bob Stark the Manager had just arrived at the gas station to start the graveyard/early morning shift when he realised all the lights were off and the place was closed up. He started digging around for his keys, found them, stuck them in the lock and let himself in, cursing Doug under his breath. That lazy useless stoner of a cashier...

As he went to turn the 'closed' sign back around to 'open', a hand shot out of the darkness and pushed him hard against the door. He heard the click of the deadbolt sliding into place and then felt a gun pressing into the back of his neck.

He swallowed nervously. 'Employees don't have access to the safe at night, there's always less than $50 in the drawer-'

'Shut up.' Elliot grabbed the back of Stark's neck and threw him hard against the far wall. 'You son of a bitch.'

Stark broke into a wide smile. 'Detective Stabler! I've not seen you in, what?' He pretended to count on his fingers. 'Three months?'

'Fuck you,' said Elliot. He aimed and fired, hitting Stark in the knee.

'SHIT, you...' He grabbed at his knee, swearing. 'You bastard!'

'Uh huh.' Elliot sounded bored. He raised his gun again and shot Stark in the other knee.

Stark swore and fell onto his side, then looked up at Elliot and forced a smile. 'I see you're feeling better without that bitch bossing you around, Detective. Don't you feel liberated? Doesn't it feel wonderful to be free of that nightmare?'

Elliot shook his head. 'No.'

'Oh come on, Detective, I bet it does.'

'It doesn't.' Elliot smiled sadly. 'I loved her.'

'Bullshit.' Stark snorted derisively. 'Love isn't real, it's something those bitches use to try and manipulate you, and it makes you weak. When I saw you come in with her, I saw the way you looked at her and I pitied you.' He grinned. 'I had to give you the chance to save yourself, Detective, and you did! You chose to live, and you chose to take back what was yours!'

Elliot stared coldly at him. 'No. She chose for me.'

Stark hesitated. 'She what?'

'She chose for me. She knew I couldn't, so she did.'

'No, I checked, I made sure to check, there was residue on your hands.' Stark had stopped smiling. 'Don't you dare lie to me.'

'I'm not. She told me what to do, and when I still couldn't do it, she did it for me. She was a stronger person than I'll ever be.' Elliot laughed bitterly. 'Really showed you, didn't she?'

'That bitch,' spat Stark, 'showed me NOTHING!' He tried to jump up. Elliot rolled his eyes, raised the gun again and shot him in the ankle.

'YOU SON OF A-'

'Shut up,' said Elliot. 'Do you know what you are? You are a lonely, bitter, misogynistic little man. Why are you so scared of women, huh? What'd your mother do to you? Did she beat you, Bob, huh, did she? Did she bring other men home and fuck them in front of you? Did that make you jealous? Did you secretly want to fuck her too?'

'Screw you.'

Elliot grabbed Stark's collar and pulled him up to face him. 'You just dumped her. When I had to identify her body, she had weeds in her hair. There was dirt sticking to her forehead from where she'd lain facedown in that ditch for hours. Her nightdress was splattered in blood, and mud, and God knows what else. I loved her, and you tossed her body out of your car like a bag of garbage, and then you drove away and left her dead at the side of the road in some awful drainage ditch. How could you do that to her?' Elliot tightened his grip and pulled him in closer. 'I had to sit at her funeral and listen to the songs I'd picked and say my piece, knowing that it was my fault. I had to walk around and look people in the eye and watch them look away because they didn't know what to say to me. I've had two new partners quit on me in less than three months because they can't cope with having to deal with me and with what I've lost. Believe me when I say that I have spent the past 3 months thinking constantly of all the things I wanted to do to make you pay for what you did to her.'

'You mean, what you did to her.' Stark managed to force a smile.

Elliot threw him back down on the floor. 'No, I don't.' He fired again, hitting Stark in the shoulder. 'You bastard.' Another shot, this time into the other shoulder. Stark gave up trying to act tough and curled up on his side on the floor whimpering.

'Now unfortunately, this is only a six-shooter, so I only have one bullet left,' said Elliot. 'And now, out of courtesy, I figured I'd let you decide where you'd like it.'

'What?' Stark sounded terrified.

'You can choose! It's only fair. I'm not going to kill you. Leg? Arm? Hand? Gut? Matching set of ankles? You ever fancied a bullet to the old groin? It'd be a hell of a talking point at parties.'

'No, please...'

'Last chance, or I decide for you! 3...2...1...'

'Arm, arm!'

'Arm? Excellent choice.' Elliot took careful aim and shot him in the right wrist. Stark clutched his arm and howled.

Elliot gave him a disdainful look. 'Don't worry, you'll live, I know what I'm doing.' He paused as he heard the sound of sirens in the distance. 'Ah, that'll be Narcotics. Someone sent in an anonymous tip that this garage was being used as a front for major drug deals, if you can believe that.' He shook his head in mock disbelief. 'And if they have their sirens going, someone else must have called 911 to report hearing gunfire! What is the world coming to when good hard-working people have their sleep disturbed by a petty spat between two drug dealers in the local gas station?'

Elliot paused again, wiped off the gun and held it up to show him. 'By the way, I have it on good authority that this has been used in at least a half dozen drug-related shootings in the past year. There's another one hidden under the counter.' He tossed it under the beer coolers and headed for the back exit. 'Oh, and don't forget about the 2 kilograms of the Bronx Kings' heroin I stashed under the false bottom of that cupboard behind the counter.' He paused. 'Actually, don't worry. Even if you do forget, I'm sure the Bronx Kings won't. They can remind you in Rikers.' He smiled and walked away.

**_A/N: That's it... I hope you all liked it! Like I said, send me a review or two, and if you've enjoyed this one I have a few others that I'm still updating (if you enjoyed this, 'Paranoia' and 'Heritage' will probably be your kind of thing too.) Thanks for reading!_**


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